Proposal for Carbon Capturing Storage & Utilization

Wellage De Silva, Maha Al-Emadi, Busira Lassiss, Abdelaziz Abuelrub

April 27, 2022
Prepared for: Dr. Naqaa Abbas
Course: ENGL-210

“An Aggie does not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do”
Abstract(Maha Al-Emadi)
This project aims to address high 𝐶𝑂2 emissions in Qatar, by finding a viable solution to combat these high
𝐶𝑂2 emissions. Carbon capturing and storage (CCUS) is a vital process of removing 𝐶𝑂2 from the
atmosphere. This solution was found after a design process that involved us looking into other solutions to
combat this problem. Our CCUS has research backing up its findings and could be proposed as a viable
system. Our CCUS consists of 4 subsystems, which all work together to combat this issue.

Introduction (Maha Al-Emadi)

Global Warming is a type of climate change where the average global temperatures would rise, leading to
unpredictable weather systems, and having a severe effect on our environment and social ecosystems. Global
warming is caused by Green House Gases (GHG). Carbon dioxide (𝐶𝑂2 ) makes up most of the greenhouse
gases and that is what our group would focus on.
We found out that in Qatar, 𝐶𝑂2 emissions are 32.4 tons per capita, which is the highest in today’s world.
Qatar itself releases 106.65 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, making Qatar
responsible for 0.31% of the world’s carbon emission (Ritchie & Roser, 2020). While the number may not
seem like much currently, if the trend continues, temperatures in Qatar will rise even more than they already
are.
As more 𝐶𝑂2 is produced, more people will get affected by heat strokes, our food supply chains need to adapt
to rising temperatures, and as stated before, the weather would become more unpredictable (Climate change
impacts). The main source of 𝐶𝑂2 emissions are the 5 Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) power stations that
operates in Qatar (Shannak et al., 2022).

Figure 1- Qatar’s 𝐶𝑂2 emissions, in million tons per year (Ritchie & Roser, 2020)

Qatar’s Vision 2030 specifically dwells on how us as a society needs to work on ways to reduce global
warming effects (Qatar National Vision 2030 2008) (Qatar National Vision 2030). Consequently, Qatar
released its updated ‘Nationally Determined Contribution’ to the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), which highlights how the peninsula aims to reduce GHG emissions by 25% in
2030 (Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) 2021). This awareness led our team to research on the
effects of high 𝐶𝑂2 emissions and to come up with a solution to decrease the 𝐶𝑂2 emissions in Qatar to leave
a better Earth for future generations.
Purpose (Busira Lassiss)
The main purpose of this project is to find a viable solution that would reduce emissions by the power stations
in Qatar, whilst keeping our solution aligned with Qatar’s Vision 2030.
This issue effects everyone in Qatar, no matter which demographic they are. However, since we are looking at
ways to combat the high 𝐶𝑂2 emissions in Qatar, our focus would be the LNG power stations itself, since
majority of the emissions originates from this industry.
The purpose will be achieved when a workable method is found by which per capita carbon dioxide emissions
can be lowered. We would refer to these solutions as a Carbon Mitigation system. Our solution needs to be
realistic, and the country’s economic background should be kept in mind. The solutions also need to be
politically popular so there can be legislation and execution in place, which can quickly get the solution
implemented.
Mainly, it must be noted that our solution must be feasible to LNG power stations. This means our solutions
should be economically feasible at lowering 𝐶𝑂2 emissions and be sustainable. Additionally, if our solution
impacts the general population, we will also need to make sure that incentives are provided to motivate the
general population to pursue a greener future.

Previous and Current Research (Abdelaziz Abuelrub)

According to research, Qatar has one of the highest percentages of greenhouse gas emissions, specifically
carbon dioxide. According to studies undertaken by the World Health Organization (WHO), Qatar's
greenhouse gas emissions exceed the allowed limit of micrograms per metric cube, classifying Qatar as a
country with poor air quality.

Figure 2- 𝐶𝑂2 emissions per year in sectors (Qatar 𝐶𝑂2 Emissions - Worldometer, n.d.)

Figure 2 shows how the percentage of 𝐶𝑂2 emissions due to the Power Industry increased throughout the
years. Take note that majority of other industrial combustion processes are closely linked to the Power
Industry. To reduce the emission of Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Qatar has initiated a climate change
action plan after the release of Qatar Vision 2030. The country’s plans include becoming the largest Liquified
Natural Gas producer in the world, by 2030, as mentioned in the vision. The industry of fossil fuels is one of
the main threats of climate change and carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, the country has introduced a plan
of carbon capture and storage/utilization within the liquified natural gas production and storage process (Qatar
aims to reduce its GHG emissions by 25% in 2030). The country is working on a plan to capture and store
approximately five million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, by 2025, as mentioned by the energy
affairs minister, Saad Al-Kaabi, during the 40th oil and money conference in London. This process benefits
Qatar both environmentally and economically, since this process targets as well as focuses on becoming the
largest Liquified Natural Gas producer in the world (Qatar to store more than 5m tons of 𝐶𝑂2 a year by 2025
2019)
Carbon Capture Storage & Utilization (CCUS)
Different sectors of the industry are becoming huge implementers of Carbon Capture, Storage & Utilization
(CCUS) systems. CCUS is a three-step process, involving separation, transportation, and storage/utilization of
𝐶𝑂2 . The process depends mainly on the chemical features of 𝐶𝑂2 gas. Essentially, 𝐶𝑂2 is captured via a
chemical reaction, and via a series of Chemical Plants, is reused for other purposes. Carbon Capture
techniques that have been found include absorption, cryogenic, membrane separation, adsorption, and
chemical looping. Chemical absorption is the most popular method of capturing 𝐶𝑂2 . However, a lot of
energy is required for this method. If we investigate on CCUS further, we will research on the most efficient
method and look for areas of development.

Figure 3- An overview of the CCUS process (Developing Low-Carbon Technologies, 2020)

Globally, a variety of CCUS systems are already under operation. The largest plant is situated in the USA and
is called the ‘Century Plant’. This plant has a capture rate of 8.4 Megatons of 𝐶𝑂2 per year. The process of
running such a plant is very costly, but the benefits to the atmosphere from the dangers of carbon dioxide
emission are very noticeable. Carbon dioxide captured by the plant is therefore stored and used as well in
several industrial operations, such as Occidental Petroleum EOR project in the Permian Basin (North
America). We would analyze what makes Century plant different from all the other CCUS plants across the
globe, to benefit from the experiences of such a large project and understanding the positive and negative
impacts of running a huge carbon capturing plant, where Qatar can benefit from.

Qatar’s Future Plans

Moving on, Qatar has introduced a plan of building developed cities and facilities around the country, with a
greener and more developed environment, in order to support the climate change. Such projects include the
city of Lusail, which is one of the main projects in Qatar. This city was built and is still being constructed,
where one of its main goals is to construct infrastructure that satisfies the Global Sustainability Assessment
Program (GSAS). This program was introduced in the Middle East and North Africa Region, with the main
goal of assessing architecture’s impact on the environment. Qatar is working on Lusail City in order to
develop infrastructure that satisfies the limit of carbon emissions and climate change techniques, by therefore
comparing the final products with the international standards set by the world health organization
(Approaches to reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the built environment in Qatar).
Design Process (Busira Lassiss)
After our Design Process, we chose to work on a Carbon Capture, Storage & Utilization System as our solution.
Before settling on CCUS, we considered several alternatives. We created a matrix to help us sort, organize, and
keep track of these solutions. We first identified what the issue that we wanted to tackle was – Carbon dioxide
emissions in Qatar – then we investigated previous ways that Qatar has tried to combat this issue and formed
our matrix off those ideas. Appendix A displays our matrix.
The process matrix was made by looking at potential solutions with which Qatar can combat climate change
and carbon emissions. The solutions were planting forests, using renewable sources of energy, carbon
mineralization, ocean storage, reusing food, societal methods, transportation and carbon capturing (CCUS).
The selection criteria were access to previous research, which was given a weight of 10 percent, negative effects
of solution which was given a weight of 15 percent, cultural implications with 1 being unacceptable and 10
being acceptable being given a weight of 15 percent, long term (10 years) positive impact of solution which was
given a weight of 30 percent and lastly viability of solution in Qatar which was given a weight of 30 percent.
The Alternative Solutions
First, we considered the building of more forests in Qatar. This is an initiative that the country has been
implementing recently. Although the idea is a good, and effective since the solution is valid for a centuries,
Qatar still remains a desert, meaning building forests requires more time and money than the country can afford,
disallowing us from achieving the Qatar 2030 goal. This made the solution not viable.
A second solution that our team considered was Carbon Mineralization. This process involves minerals reacting
with carbon dioxide gas and formulating a solid. The trouble with carbon mineralization is that the process takes
a long time such as hundreds or thousands of years and it results in creating by-products which are useless such
as ash, dust and iron etc. In order to deal with this, minerals exposure to carbon dioxide can be enhanced. So,
carbon dioxide would be pumped into minerals with suitable conditions like pumping alkaline water. This
method is particularly useful because it does not rely on preventing more carbon dioxide emissions but rather it
takes a more active role in reducing the current amount of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere. Using the same
matrix method above and analyzing the pros and cons, we decided that this method was not viable because
Carbon Mineralization takes decades, and little development were presented for this technique.
Complete switching to renewable sources for electricity production was considered. For example, solar power
can be used as a source to generate electricity. There was promising research about this solution such as Al-
Kharsaah solar power plant, which is an 800MW plant, and is reported to aim to meet 10 percent of the electricity
demand in the country currently. However, we realized that a much larger variety of renewable sources of
energy are needed to have a significant effect on reducing 𝐶𝑂2 emissions. This led us to a lot of implications,
since this would mean replacing the job sector of the current LNG power stations and changing the source of
energy in a country that has an intricate history with the Natural Gas industry. Additionally, countless research
materials are available for renewable energy, and we want to focus on a different viable solution. This made the
complete switching to renewable energy sources not viable.
 Figure 4- Volume of Solar Energy combined capacity in Qatar from 2013 to 2018(Qatar: Volume of Solar Energy Combined Capacity
2018, n.d.)

After the design process, we chose CCUS as the solution we would work on. It was clear that CCUS had a
variety of issues related to it, as highlighted previously. Nevertheless, we realized that this was the most practical
solution for now.

Our Proposed Solution (Wellage De Silva)

CCUS is an entire system, consisting of subsystems. As stated before, our solution should be feasible. Each
subsystem would perform a particular function that would aid our CCUS to be an effective solution. After
additional research focused specifically on CCUS subsystems, we finally came up with the solution presented
below. Figure ‘’ illustrates the overall design of our CCUS.

Figure 5- Overview of our CCUS

The flue gas enters the 𝐶𝑂2 Capturer, where 𝐶𝑂2 is separated from the remaining components of the flue gas.
The treated flue gas exits out the 𝐶𝑂2 capture into the atmosphere. This process alone reduces C𝐶𝑂2 O2
emissions from the LNG power stations, which would achieve our objective. Nevertheless, an effective
solution should look into all complexities of the problem. The captured and then compressed 𝐶𝑂2 gas cannot
be left as it is, it must be either stored or utilized in some way (hence Carbon Capture, Utilization and
Storage).
Our system allows the 𝐶𝑂2 gas to be utilized in ways that are proven very beneficial to society (would be
elaborated later). Additionally, our CCUS allows flexibility in letting the users of our solution choose what to
do with the 𝐶𝑂2 produced. There may be cases when too much 𝐶𝑂2 is captured, and not all of it can be
utilized. That’s where our Underground Storage system comes into play.
What separates our solution from the ones available on the market is that for one, our solution is effective to
use in Qatar. Our solution makes the high 𝐶𝑂2 emissions in Qatar advantageous to its economy, since we have
found new ways of utilizing 𝐶𝑂2 efficiently. Additionally, our CCUS is powered by both Solar Energy and
Natural Gas. This is an effective strategy to implement in Qatar since this country is mainly sunny. This
would lead to a smaller decrease in the power efficiency of the LNG power stations.

Carbon Capture System

Figure 6 showcases the process flow diagram of the Carbon Capture System used in our CCUS.

Figure 6- Carbon Capture System Process Flow Diagram

The Carbon Capture System captures 𝐶𝑂2 and compresses it for utilization or storage. Our subsystem works
on the ‘Chemical Absorption’ Technique, which is a 2-stage process. First, an amine solution captures 𝐶𝑂2
via a chemical reaction between 𝐶𝑂2 and the solvent to form liquid rich in 𝐶𝑂2 . This rich liquid enters the
stripper, where the 𝐶𝑂2 is recovered by the addition of heat energy. Hence, 𝐶𝑂2 is captured (Chemical
Absorption - an Overview | ScienceDirect Topics, n.d.). Figure 7 show the reaction of 𝐶𝑂2 with the solvent in
the Absorber (Absorption) and the Stripper (Desorption) respectively.

Figure 7- Chemical Absorption reactions (Ochedi et al., 2020)

The difference between our Carbon Capturing System and the majority of the systems available in the market
is in the solvent used. Our solvent consists of a mixture of Monoethanolamine (MEA) and
Methyldiethanolamine (MDEA). Most Carbon Capturing systems in today’s world use only MEA. The MEA-
MDEA solvent our system utilizes allows less energy. Figures 8 compares the efficiency of the CCUS when
using MEA-MDEA as compared to using only MEA at 95% 𝐶𝑂2 removal (Aroonwilas & Veawab, 2007).
 Figure 8- Net efficiency of CCUS vs % Carbon Dioxide removal, compared between MEA-MDEA and MEA (Aroonwilas & Veawab,
2007).

Dry Reforming
Figure 9 outlines the Dry Reforming Process of our CCUS.

Figure 9- The Dry Reforming Process Flow Diagram

This process is 1 of 2 processes that utilizes the captured 𝐶𝑂2 to make products that are needed in other
industries. The Dry Reforming (DR) Process takes in 𝐶𝑂2 from the Carbon Capturer, and Hydrocarbons (from
oil reservoirs), to form Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Hydrogen gas (𝐻2 ). Hydrogen gas is used in multiple
other industries.
Figure 10 shows the chemical reaction that takes place in the DR process. A catalyst is necessary to make the
DR process possible. However, DR is still an expensive process. A lot of energy is required in DR, which
could potentially lead to a lower net 𝐶𝑂2 captured if implemented in our CCUS. Nevertheless, we have found
out methods of making DR more feasible to implement. This DR process uses a new type of catalyst and
another method of preparing the catalyst. A catalyst is a substance that speeds up the rate of a reaction,
without getting used up in the process. The catalyst would be placed in the Reformer in Figure 8.
 Figure 10- Dry reforming reaction overview (Niu et al., 2020)

Instead of using the conventional Nickel Aluminum Oxide catalyst, our catalyst incorporates Platinum. This
would improve the efficiency of the DR process. Figure 11 illustrates this statement. It can be seen that
blending these two metals would lead to a significant decrease in the amount of 𝐶𝑂2 that would be lost
(García-Diéguez et al., 2010).

Figure 11- Carbon Dioxide Conversion loss when using different types of catalysts (García-Diéguez et al., 2010)

Additionally, our catalyst would be produced via the reverse microemulsion method (ME). This method
allows composite materials to be manufactured on the nanoscale. It works on 2 aqueous phases containing the
metal salts that merge and react with each other (Kaiser et al., n.d.).
The ME method leads to a more stable catalyst. Figure ‘’ illustrates this. It can be seen that the ME method
leads to a more consistent 𝐶𝑂2 % conversion rate than the Impregnation method (García-Diéguez et al., 2010).

Carbon Fiber Synthesis

Currently, Carbon Fiber is manufactured via a costly method. Carbon Fibers are superior to regular building
materials mainly due to them being light but extremely strong in supporting loads. Due to the large amounts of
𝐶𝑂2 generated in Qatar, we decided to find ways to utilize this to produce Carbon Fibers in a cost-effective
way. And we did successfully find a viable method.
Microalgae are plants usually found in the ocean that is known to incorporate 𝐶𝑂2 into their biomass. Our
solutions involve transporting the captured 𝐶𝑂2 gas and transporting it to a Plant that grows the microalgae
Desmodesmus. This microalga is found in abundance in Qatar and is known to incorporate 𝐶𝑂2 into their
biomass efficiently (Brigham, 2019). This process is Carbon Negative, further separating our solution from
the ones available in the market currently.

Underground Storage
Underground storage allows captured 𝐶𝑂2 to be stored until its needed. Our solution incorporates this because
we realized that it is very likely a large amount of 𝐶𝑂2 can be captured at times, and it would ‘overflow’ all
other 𝐶𝑂2 lines. Therefore, it seemed logical to have a place to store the 𝐶𝑂2 . The gas can be stored in already
existing oil reservoirs in Qatar. This storage method in fact leads to ‘enhanced oil recovery’, meaning that oil
 underground in Qatar can be extracted more easily. This sub-system effectively provides a benefit to our
solution as well as a benefit to the LNG power stations.

Conclusion
The main purpose of our design was to propose a suitable solution regarding 𝐶𝑂2 emission in Qatar. The
proposed solution shows significant levels of success and efficiency, even though the process is time and
money consuming. Qatar is therefore able to initiate such projects, that will therefore provide positive impacts
on economic and social development as well as environmental. Nevertheless, it should be clear that 𝐶𝑂2
emissions from urban areas are also high. Global warming effects will be reduced due to reducing 𝐶𝑂2
emissions from industry, but Qatar people will still emit 𝐶𝑂2 into the atmosphere on a daily basis. To ensure a
fool proof solution model to effectively eradicate this problem, it is important to develop other solution
models that targets Qatar’s society, to ensure maximum effectiveness and positive results, and to therefore
eliminate Global Warming issues in Qatar as much as possible.

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Appendix

Appendix A